File:Remains of lime-kiln - geograph.org.uk - 1622071.jpg

English: Remains of lime-kiln This is a view of the ninth (see the list below) of ten visited lime-kiln ruins in this area.

Early Ordnance Survey maps (published in 1864) of this area show over a dozen "old limekiln" sites along a fairly short section (less than a mile) of the Murroch Burn.

I set out to locate ten of these sites (ignoring only a few locations that are particularly close to Murroch Farm), and succeeded in positively identifying nine of them (as for the other one, I located what I believe to be its remains, but they are in very poor condition, making identification uncertain). I have submitted images of each of the identified sites, indexed as follows (all positions are nominally ±5m, or better):

● Site 1: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622098 – NS 40860 77837.

● Site 2: (see site 3) – NS 41129 77914 ?

● Site 3: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622129 – NS 41138 77920.

● Site 4: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622145 – NS 41455 78205.

● Site 5: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622152 – NS 41464 78273.

● Site 6: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622175 – NS 41489 78301.

● Site 7: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622205 – NS 41560 78362.

● Site 8: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622226 – NS 41644 78520.

● Site 9: shown here, and at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622069 – NS 41686 78616.

● Site 10: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622249 – NS 41741 78697.

The most surprising site was number 7, where a surviving wall, intact to a height of over a metre, is fully exposed on one side.

To return to the present photo, the circular pit shown in the foreground is the ruin at site 9 (of the ten sites, this is the one whose remains are best exposed to view), with the Murroch Burn winding in the background; for the main description of this site, see https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1622069

The old maps referred to above are the 25-inch-to-the-mile OS maps published in 1864, based on surveys performed in 1860. As indicated by the label "old limekiln" shown on these maps, the kilns had fallen into disuse even before the middle of the nineteenth century; the remaining pits are all the same size, and the kilns were probably all built along the same lines. They were used in small-scale industry, burning limestone to produce lime for agricultural use.